


Off To The Races

by silvered



Category: Utopia (TV 2013)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 04:39:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9702497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvered/pseuds/silvered
Summary: They know the stakes of the game.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arbitrarily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbitrarily/gifts).



“Do you think,” she says one evening, eyes half-closed in bed, “there are others like us?”

“Yes,” he replies, watching her face. It isn’t a stretch to imagine other small groups like theirs, coming together and falling apart over the same grand goal. Governments rise and thrive and fall on the whims of people like them, and there are always people like them, because they are needed.

And when one spends one’s life doing what is necessary, it becomes second nature. The Assistant can’t imagine that there are _not_ others like them. If there are others like them, they will understand.

“Look at India,” he continues, hand slipping to her jaw, “already state policy. China. Others will follow. We’re just the first.”

“Do you think?” she murmurs around his finger, although the question is strictly rhetorical.

“I’d put money on it.”

***

Cheltenham is grey with mist and rain-soft, and he trains his binoculars on her from the stand.  Her face is dipped beneath a broad-brimmed hat, red hair tied up carefully out of the way.

Milner slips a note into the pocket of one of their targets, gets away neatly, places a bet casually. The target does not notice, eyes fixed on the course. He presses a cigarette to his lips, fumbles in his pocket for a lighter, finds the note.

Milner is walking up the concrete steps of the stand, eyes locked on him, betting slip crumpled in her glove. The Assistant moves aside, passes her the binoculars. Their target is sweating now. He pushes his way through the horde and Milner smiles as she watches.

The Assistant takes the betting slip from her. It’s difficult to smooth in his glove and the writing is a little bleary from the drizzle already. The paper bears the rough pencil scrawl that passes for penmanship on Gold Cup Day.

“King’s Ransom?” He looks down, Milner flicks back stray bright strands of hair and smiles her knowing smile.

“At 20/1, it’ll buy us both dinner at the Ritz if it comes in. Come on, let’s watch the race first.”

The Assistant does not need to be told the rest; _before we go to the stables_.

The race starts and the stand lights up with noise and movement around them. They are both still, feeling their nerves alight.

King’s Ransom falls four fences from the end. Milner screws up the betting slip and shoves it in her pocket. Without a trace. He’s always liked that about her.

He weaves through the crowds hurrying to the tote or to the course’s bar. It is easy to disappear among the crowds, just one more young man in a trench coat among so many others. Milner takes the other route, moving swiftly despite her heels.

The target, who is a prominent owner, is pacing outside his stable. He should be inside, the Assistant thinks, but there’s nobody else, not even a stable lad. Milner saw to that when she dosed his best horse earlier. They are all preoccupied, with the race or with the horse. It does not matter as long as they are alone.

_He_ sees her, leaning back just out of view, but the target does not. It would not matter if he did. He fixes the Assistant with a pleading look.

“Please,” he says. Somewhere, a horse whinnies, and he turns, half-distracted.

The Assistant turns his neck with a sharp crack, and he falls to the ground limp and useless as a dud betting slip. They hide him in an empty stall.

 

***

“Your bet never came in.”

There are so few moments of true levity these days. He does not _miss_ them but –

Beneath him, she moves, draws in breath, arches her back. He watches, as always.

“That’s one we can afford to lose.”

Milner opens her eyes, gazes up at him, takes his finger briefly off her lip.

“They will thank us in the end.”

“Yes,” he says, moving onto her, already half-hard. He does not need persuading. He has understood what needs to be done. They have been the first and will be the last. Carvel is Milner’s special weakness, and the Assistant does not share it. He sees the way Milner looks at him, and he carefully watches the way Carvel looks back at Milner. How over time he has evolved from awed to respectful to fearful.

The Assistant knows what will happen, and he is not surprised when it _does_ happen, and he comforts Milner and helps her get on with things. Milner is a survivor, but Carvel’s defection hurts her in a way that The Assistant thinks she should have grown out of by now, after Tom.

They have what they need, after all. The rest is merely a formality.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear arbitrarily, I love your fic about these two and I've always wanted to treat you in an exchange, so here you go.  
> I loved all your prompts and somehow several of them combined into this. Thank you for requesting this!


End file.
